Our Story

In August 2024, Jill Baker, Ngozi Cole and Mark Davis had a conversation in 1 Strawberry Lane, Newcastle just after the racist and Islamophobic riots of that summer. Struggling to make sense of what we had just witnessed, they asked themselves what had just happened on our watch. They recognised that the riots were just another manifestation of the discrimination that had persisted in our society for generations. They concluded that they needed to convene other people to help to understand and try again to bring about an even more inclusive region where we and our fellow human beings could thrive.

We knew from the very start that this would take time and would take a multi–pronged approach but for us, sitting back was not an option and waiting for others to do something was not an option. As Barack Obama said “change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” On 5 September in Newcastle, around 35 individuals and organisations came together for an initial conversation about what we can do to help avoid future racist and Islamophobic riots, or indeed other manifestations of hate. The rest as they say, is history.

Our Aim & Why

To make the North East a region that actively opposes racism, and hatred based on religious identity.